The Great Doomship Offensive (2006 Series)
The Great Doomship Offensive is the eighth episode of Super Mario Bros. Z. It was released on October 9, 2009 Plot Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach once again, but this time she's held captive in Bowser's newly constructed, flying Omega Doomship. Mario and company hear about the tragedy through a letter sent from Bowser. In the letter, Bowser states that he's holding Peach for ransom, and demands that Mario and his team bring him the Chaos Emeralds that they currently have. Everyone agrees to help rescue Peach, except for Shadow, thinking that they would be wasting precious time they should be using finding more Chaos Emeralds before Mecha Sonic does. This starts an argument between Sonic and Shadow, ending up with with Shadow nearly killing Sonic. Sonic reminds him that he was never like this in the past, never fighting for pride and amusement, and being one of the most compassionate people he's ever known. Sonic asks what changed Shadow, who then has a flashback of him holding the dead body of his friend Rouge, implying that her death was responsible. Shadow then leaves the group, feeling that his and Sonic's interests would only end up clashing with each other. The remainder of the group (Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Sonic and Stuffwell) then head to E.Gadd's lab. E.Gadd reveals that he had bought supplies for them, anticipating their rescue attempt, and had also fixed up and upgraded the Sky Pop, Mario's old plane. The group then take off in the Sky Pop Mk II (via giant slingshot) in search of the Omega Doomship. Wario and Waluigi make an attempt to ambush the group, by Wario throwing Waluigi to intercept the plane. Their plan spectacularly falls short when Waluigi falls just short of the plane, and plummets down to earth. The group eventually find the Doomship, and come under attack from the ship's now-operational defenses. Bowser orders Basilisx to fire the cannon twice to hit the heroes but they manage to dodge. After dodging enemy fire, Mario and Sonic jump from the Sky Pop and freefall towards the doomship, Mario transforming into Racoon Mario during this time. The duo land on the hull and fight their way through the troops stationed there. Yoshi and Luigi, still in the Sky Pop then blow a hole in the hull, and charge in ahead of Mario and Sonic. The two end up in a hangar, but unfortunately, they run into an army of Koopatrol soldiers. The army attacks them, but, Mario and Sonic save them. Mario flies Luigi and Yoshi out of the way of the troops, while Sonic attempts to retrieve a Fire Flower Luigi dropped. However, he is overwhelmed by the soldiers and the Fire Flower ends up in a load of Bob-ombs. Sonic survives the explosion, and uses the Fire Flower to transform into the powerful Fire Sonic. Using his new flame based powers, Sonic starts annihilating Bowser's troops, and is quickly joined by Mario, Yoshi and Tanooki Luigi. Sonic and the group nearly finish off the the soldiers, but are interupted by Basilisx, an elite Koopatrol soldier with the ability to turn things to stone by gazing at them. He demands a one-on-one fight to the death with Mario, wanting revenge for killing his friend, and petrifies Luigi, Yoshi and Sonic, to stop them from interfering. Basilisx then draws out Wolverine-style claws, while Mario uses a hammer suit to transform into Hammer Mario, gaining armour and dual hammers. Although Basilisx a good fighter, with his abilities enhanced in an experiment performed by the mysterious scientist working with Bowser (Dr. Robotnik), he and Hammer Mario prove to be equal in strength. He then grabs the petrified Luigi statue, using it as a shield to stop Mario from attacking. Unwilling to harm his brother, Mario is quickly defeated. Bowser, watching Mario and Basilisx from a monitor in his throne room with Peach, laughs with a wicked smile, while Peach looks in terror as Basilisx prepares to kill Mario. Episode thumb|340px|right Transcript Moment of Terror Toadsworth tells the story of Bowser's new and great Omega Doomship arriving at Peach's Castle until he suddenly fainted. Sayonora, Shadow After Mario reads the letter Bowser sent to the the heroes, Stuffwell tells them to go to Prof. E Gadd's lab. However, Shadow intervenes and hits Sonic into Mario (causing Toadsworth to faint). Shadow and Sonic have a fight, and Sonic tells how angry he's become and insults him about what happened on Space Colony ARK (the place where Shadow was created) when they were fighting Black Doom. Shadow gets angry and threatens to kill Sonic. Sonic questions Shadow why he's been angrier than he's ever been, leading Shadow to have a flashback about how he found out about Rouge and E-123 Omega's deaths. Shadow tells Sonic to hurry and rescue Peach, and leaves the group. Sonic becomes depressed, but Mario comforts him and leaves with him. Toward the Sky Pop Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Sonic and Stuffwell head towards E.Gadd's lab. After briefly losing Luigi they eventually arrive. E.Gadd expected the heroes arrival and prepared some items for the team. As Yoshi, Sonic and Stuffwell go outside, the Mario Bros. go collect the supplies and get in the Sky Pop Mark II ( the plane). Once everybody gets on board a giant slingshot sends the protagonists rocketing towards the Omega Doomship. To War! Fire in the Hanger Luigi accidently drops a Fire Flower while being overwhelmed with Yoshi by the Koopa Troopers. Sonic then tries to retrieve it but gets hit by one of the Koopa Troopers and the Fire Flower hits a pile of bombs and they explode with Sonic caught in the explosion. Sonic is badly hurt but survives and uses the the Fire Flower to transform into a new form of his, which fans prefer to as "Fire Sonic". As Fire Sonic, Sonic annihalates the Koopa Troopers with fiery powers, and then gets joined by Racoon Mario, Tanooki Luigi and Yoshi. They are just about to finish the Koopa Troopers until Basilix intervienes and confronts the trio. Heart of Stone Trivia *This episode's title was inspired by The Great Cave Offensive, a game from ''Kirby Super Star'' and its remake Kirby Super Star Ultra. *Bowser's theme song at the beginning is from Super Mario Galaxy. *Bowser's Omega Doomship seems to resemble Star Destroyers from Star Wars. *This Episode marks Alvin-Earthworm's change of Princess Peach's sprites from ''Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga'' to ''Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story''. *In the preview of this episode, Princess Peach's sprites were from ''Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time''. *This is so far the only episode in which Mecha Sonic is absent, and only mentioned. In Episode 4, he didn't appear in the present, but he did physically appear in flashbacks. *Basilisx is an obvious reference to the Basilisk. *Alvin-Earthworm stated that this episode is part of a three-part episode arc. *Mario's series of uppercuts in the "Fire in the Hangar" scene is a combination of Ken's Shoryureppa and Shinryuken from Street Fighter. *Basilisx defeats Mario by using Vega's Super Attack from the Street Fighter series. *Much like in Episodes 4 and 7, Sonic uses a Hurricane Kick twice. *Despite what Basilisx says, there is no lava in room 2 of Bowser's Castle in Dinosaur Land (Super Mario World), and the only Koopas there are ones climbing on a net. Alvin-Earthworm has stated that it was just supposed to imply "some random koopa that Mario wouldn't remember." *The note Mario finds at the beginning of the episode is a reference to the infamous Hotel Mario prologue. (Bowser acknowledges the reference when he crosses out the part of the message that says "at one of my seven Koopa Hotels" as well as saying in the note "With that reference out of the way..." before getting to the point.). Stuffwell also states that he's getting a sense of Deja vu. *The Koopatrol that says, "Main screen turn on!" is referencing the "All Your Base" meme that originated from Zero Wing. *Stuffwell tells Mario to "Do a Barrel Roll", which is a reference to an internet meme from ''Star Fox 64''. On a related note, one of the shots of the Omega Doomship arriving in the Mushroom Kingdom resembled the Attack Carrier's arrival at Corneria in the opening of the original Star Fox. A Star Fox sound effect played as well. *The scene where the Doom Kannon first fired used angles similar for the Egg Carrier's beam cannon from Sky Chase in ''Sonic Adventure'' and the Delphinus' Moonstone Cannon in Skies of Arcadia. **Alvin-Earthworm having used a track from said latter game (Valua Lower City, Skies of Arcadia/Eternal Arcadia) enforces the likelihood of above statement as well. *Basilisx's claws are very similar to those of the X-Men super hero, Wolverine, and his creation may be a parody of the Weapon X program from the X-Men series Bowser's statement about how it was funny that it only took "one little needle" to make Basilisx into a cold, emotionless warrior and how his cold, emotionless behavior had achieved "more results than what the lab reports predicted" further reinforces the reference to Weapon X. The attacks Basilisx uses are also very reminiscent moves used by Wolverine in the the Marvel vs. series. *While not outright stated, Shadow's unusually aggressive and heartless behavior is heavily implied via flashbacks to have resulted from Rouge and Omega being killed by Mecha Sonic . *Episode 8 marks the first appearance of Fire Sonic. *Sonic briefly references the Tornado, his biplane on Mobius when on the Sky Pop MK II *This is the second time the Heroes, or indeed anyone, have battled with generic minor characters. *When Yoshi and Luigi enter the inside of the Doomship, the interior of the Battleship Halberd from ''Kirby Super Star Ultra'' is used as the background. *This technically marks the fourth episode where a character utters a curse word (if one counts Hal and Jeff's cameo in the previous episode as swearing). The Hammer Bros, shortly after a Bob-omb was kicked into one of their bill blasters by Mario, had three pictograms with a pile of bull feces with flies flying around it in each, implying that they said S*** or Cr** (which isn't technically a curse word), as well as Shadow yelling, "Da** YOU, SONIC!!!". *Alvin-Earthworm has confirmed that the Koopalings will fight the heroes in Episode 9. *Fire Sonic managing to get a 1-up by wiping out five enemies at a time is a reference to the same feature in the Mario games. *In the ending of Episode 7, Luigi and Mario saw that the Mushroom Kingdom was left in ruins, implying that the Doomship deployed its weapon systems and left devastation in its wake. However, when Bowser was bragging about his success about capturing Peach, he revealed that he didn't unleash any of his on-board weapons before the Toads started running for the hills. It is unknown how the kingdom got devastated, or it may simply be a continuity error or Bowser may have attacked the Mushroom Kingdom after the Toads ran away. *The backdrop of the scene in which Waluigi falls from a very great height and lands in a puff of dust is the aerial view of the region Fillmore from ActRaiser, and the scene itself is a reference to various instances in the Looney Tunes shorts in which a character (such as Wile E. Coyote) falls off a cliff accompanied by a whistling sound of himself falling and a cloud of dust indicating that he has hit the ground below. *This is the first (and probably only) episode where Poison Mushrooms appear. Appearances *Mario (8th) *Luigi (8th) *Sonic (7th) *Shadow (7th) *Yoshi (6th) *Princess Peach (7th) *Wario (5th) *Waluigi (5th) *Bowser (5th) *Kamek (4th) *Kammy (2nd) *Professor E. Gadd (5th) *Stuffwell (2nd) *The Koopalings (2nd) *Eggman (unconfirmed) (3rd) *Toadsworth (3rd) *Basilisx (1st) *Rouge (flashback only) *E-123 Omega (flashback only) *Maria Robotnik (mentioned only) Category:Mario Appearances Category:Luigi Appearances Category:Sonic Appearances Category:Shadow Appearances Category:Yoshi Appearances Category:Princess Peach Appearances Category:Wario Appearances Category:Waluigi Appearances Category:Bowser Appearances Category:Kamek Appearances Category:Kammy Appearances Category:Professor E. Gadd Appearances Category:Stuffwell Appearances Category:Koopalings Appearances Category:Eggman Appearances Category:Toadsworth Appearances Category:Basilisx Appearances Category:Episodes